


Incidentally

by veronamay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AO3 1 Million, M/M, Post-Episode: s05e13, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-06
Updated: 2010-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:37:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veronamay/pseuds/veronamay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he'd been watching Sam more closely, he would've seen the signs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incidentally

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://girlmostlikely.livejournal.com/profile)[**girlmostlikely**](http://girlmostlikely.livejournal.com/) on this gloomiest of Saturdays. Speculative fic that grew out of [this thread](http://veronamay.livejournal.com/759062.html?thread=9548310#t9548310) in my episode reaction post.
> 
> WARNING: This fic contains descriptions of a character contemplating suicide. Please proceed with caution if this is a sensitive issue for you.

If he'd been watching Sam more closely, he would've seen the signs. He would've noticed the silences that were thoughtful instead of resigned, the way Sam's hands lingered on certain things they pulled from the trunk and hid in olive green canvas bags. If he'd been watching, Dean would have seen.

But that was half the problem, wasn't it? Watching Sam. It was trying _not_ to watch Sam too closely that got them in trouble in the first place. Trying to keep his distance, a brotherly distance, and then overloading completely when Sam got a knife in the back.

Dean wasn't buying Michael's free-will-is-an-illusion crap, not for a second. He wouldn't have anyway, on principle (and of course it was just his luck that Michael turned out to be as big a dick as Lucifer) but as shocking as _The Incident_ was, it was an awful kind of proof that free will was alive and well in the Winchester family.

 _The Incident_. That was how Dean would think of it afterward. A little grand for his usual taste, but it was a big, huge fucking thing, so a fifty-cent word was called for. He never called it that aloud—never referred to it at all if he could avoid it—but in his head it was different. In his head he took the memory of walking back to the motel with dinner and everything that followed after, stuck it in a folder and filed it under 'I' in a mental filing cabinet with a heavy-duty fuck-off lock.

Sam wanted ribs, something heavy to soak up the dent they'd put in Dean's bottle of Johnnie Black. They were drinking together more of late, which warmed Dean and worried him in equal measures. He was happy to share his booze—freaking ecstatic, really, not that he'd admit that—but it wasn't Sam's usual deal. Still, Dean wasn't going to question Sam's decision to drown his sorrows. He wasn't a total hypocrite (and there was that hesitation, the soft warning of _don't watch too close, don't look too long_ that kept him from asking). So he left Sam staring at the floor beside Dean's bed and headed for the steak joint three blocks away.

He was gone for fifteen minutes. Maybe less.

When he got back to the motel, paper bags in one hand and cardboard drinks tray in the other, their window was dark and the curtains were drawn, and something deep in Dean's mind shrieked, _No_.

He dumped his burdens on the Impala's hood and sidled up to the door. His right hand was easing his pearl-handled Colt from the small of his back; his left hand went inside his jacket and reappeared with the glint of silver. Demon knife, not angel, but the other was still within easy reach. Dean wasn't taking chances anymore, Enochian watermarks or no.

The door was unlocked, the way he'd left it. Dean turned the knob just enough to clear the latch, then resettled his grip on the knife and shoved the door open with his foot, dropping to the ground. He edged one eye around the jamb, ready to pull back. A subconscious chant of, _notsammynotsammynotsammy_ bled into a corner of his mind like a cut vein.

In the next instant he froze, completely incapacitated, while his mind tried to take in the scene before him.

Sam. With the Colt. _The_ Colt, the motherfucking demon-killing almost-invincible Colt. Sam on the floor at the end of Dean's bed with the Colt in his hand and the barrel in his mouth.

Eyes closed, flying open in the dark as Dean scrambled through the door and lunged, ripping the gun from his hand.

Face dry, no tears, not so much as a tremor to mark the fact that he was going to take his own life.

" _No_ ," Dean said, in a voice too broken to be a howl. "What the fuck—Sam, what ..."

Sam slumped, letting Dean's weight carry them both to the floor. He stared at the ceiling, face set, and shrugged.

"They say this gun can kill anything," he said. "And if I can't be saved, I should die. Isn't that what Dad said?"

"I don't give a fuck what Dad said!" Dean heaved himself into a sitting position and glared at his brother. His hands were shaking. "You don't get to make that choice, Sam. _Jesus_."

Sam slanted a look at him, eyebrow cocked.

"So much for Team Free Will, huh?"

"Fuck you," Dean snarled. "Don't kid yourself. This?" He waved the Colt, then tossed it onto the bed. "That's not free will, it's cowardice."

Sam's whole body stiffened at that, and Dean's heart finally stopped pounding. Sam wasn't too far gone, not if he could still get pissed at an insult.

"I don't know what else to do," Sam admitted finally, in a low voice. He still wouldn't look at Dean, but he didn't sound so empty. "They're all so fucking sure they know how it's gonna end, and I ..."

"What?" Dean nudged Sam's hip when he trailed into silence again. "What, you thought checking out early would really show them? C'mon, Sammy, that's not you. That's a, a fifteen-year-old goth kid who gets bullied at school. You're stronger than this."

"I'm tired, Dean." Sam looked at him then, eyes wide and hollow and half-dead already. "I'm so tired. I know that's weak and I know you're tired too but I just ... I don't know how much longer I can do this." He closed his eyes and firm line of his mouth collapsed, twisting, turning down. "He's in my head every night, and he's Jess and Mom and you and all you want me to do is say yes. And sometimes," he took a hitching breath, "sometimes it's all I want too."

He looked up suddenly, catching Dean's gaze, and Dean felt it like a sucker punch. There was more to what Sam was saying, more to that _yes_ he dreamed about (and there would be a discussion about those dreams later, oh yes) but it was tangled up in Lucifer and Michael and destiny, all of it clashing in Sam's eyes. Dean wasn't sure he could untangle it—wasn't sure he should even try—but he wasn't going to leave Sam hurting like this, to the point where irreversible death seemed like the best option. If they went together, if they planned it, that was one thing, but this—Sam on his own, thinking about dying—this was _wrong_.

"Come on," he said. "Up."

He got to his feet and braced himself, grabbing Sam's outstretched hand. When they were both standing Dean braced himself again (because close watching was dangerous, but close touching was potentially disastrous) and gripped Sam's shoulders tight.

"Look," he said, speaking to Sam's collarbones. "This whole thing sucks and you're getting the worst of it and I don't blame you for wanting out, Sam, I don't." Although he did, a little, but only because 'out' would equal 'dead' and that was unacceptable. "But it's just you and me here. There's no-one else if we give up. And I know that sucks even worse, dude, but seriously—would you trust anyone else to deal with this? Because I wouldn't."

He looked up then, into Sam's eyes, trying to reach him.

"You and me, Sammy," he said. "That's it. That's all."

Sam just looked at him for a minute, searching his face for something. Dean let him look, standing still for once, standing it as well as he could without cracking wide open. Whatever Sam was looking for, he seemed to find it, because he let out a deep sigh and nodded. Dean clapped his hands on Sam's shoulders and let him go.

"Fuck," he said, looking around.

The door was still wide open, and his gun and the demon knife were spilled on the carpet where he'd dropped them. Their food was still on the hood of the car, visible through the door. To Dean it felt like days ago, heading out to get dinner, but when he checked his watch it had only been half an hour.

"Uh, I'll get that," Sam said, darting over to the door, flipping the light switch. He picked up Dean's weapons and handed them to him with a fleeting look of apology. "You want to open a couple beers?"

Dean nodded and turned his back, glad to put the incident behind them. It was already carving a space in the back of his mind to be relived a thousand unwilling times, but for now he wanted to forget about it.

They ate their cold ribs and drank their beer, and for a few hours everything was fine. But when they turned in around midnight, Dean remembered what Sam had said ( _all you want me to do is say yes_ ) and the vague sleepiness he'd been courting disappeared.

Dean counted strippers for an hour or so, then turned over and stared through the darkness at his brother, an unmoving lump in the other bed. Sam didn't appear uneasy; if anything he appeared exhausted, deeply asleep in a way that didn't happen often anymore. Dean strained his eyes, trying to see more, frustrated by the dim light filtering in from outside.

Finally he slipped out of bed and crept across to Sam, settling on his knees near the nightstand. He felt like a stalker, sitting there watching his brother sleep, but if Lucifer was trying to get to Sam through his dreams then Dean wanted to be able to recognise the signs.

Also, there was the not-inconsiderable relief he got from seeing Sam's chest move: in-out, in-out, echoing the thump of Dean's heartbeat. After nearly losing him to Anna's plan a few weeks ago and then again tonight, Dean wasn't taking anything for granted.

Something small buried deep inside him wanted to gibber and cry at that, at how close he'd come to being brotherless yet again. Dean shut it down with the ease of long experience, but the ghost of it remained.

He knelt there until his legs fell asleep, chin resting on his crossed arms at the edge of the mattress, eyes fixed on Sam's face. He was breaking the number one rule (don't watch too close), but he was only watching and Sam was asleep and he'd almost fucking _killed himself_ tonight.

Dean shied away from that; The Incident was too raw and the night too quiet, nothing to distract him if he let himself sink into it. He kept looking at Sam's face, listening to him breathe, just for one more minute.

One more minute and then he'd be fine; he'd go back to bed and get some sleep because Sam was okay and he wasn't going anywhere.

* * *

Sam went to bed feeling low, scum-of-the-earth demon-worshipping low. He'd seen the look in Dean's eyes, the sheer unvarnished terror when he saw Sam with the Colt in his hand, and in the split second before Dean ripped it away Sam had realised what he was doing. He'd stopped believing Dean could care that much anymore. He felt guilty for being relieved that he was wrong.

Sleep was quick in coming lately, Lucifer keen to dig his soft-voiced insidious barbs into Sam's psyche. He sank into its black depths while Dean was still in the bathroom, dropping into deep slumber within minutes.

The dream formed around him almost immediately: grocery shopping with Jess a lifetime ago, exchanging banter in the produce section. It was always a shock when Jess changed and melted (or Mom, or Dean—Dean was the worst, because Sam had no defences against him even in sleep), Nick's decaying face appearing, Lucifer's reasonable persuasion pounding into his brain like a hammer. Sam ground his teeth and closed his dream-eyes, refusing to listen, humming 'Sanitarium' under his breath because hell, it worked for Dean and he was willing to try anything at this point.

In the next breath Sam was awake. The disconnect was severe; he lay still and kept his breathing steady on pure instinct, trying to isolate what woke him.

It happened again: Dean's hand brushing his face, stroking hair away from his forehead.

Then Dean's voice, whisper-soft in the silent room.

"Don't you fuckin' leave me, Sammy. Don't you ever. You _can't_."

It was stunning. Dean loved him, he knew that—half the reason they were in this mess was because Dean loved him—but knowing it and feeling it were two entirely different things. The naked desperation in Dean's voice, the feather-light touch of his fingers on Sam's face; these things hit him where he lived, revived the part of him that worshipped his brother no matter what.

Sam lay in his bed and feigned sleep while Dean knelt beside him for an hour or more, the edge of his hand pressing against Sam's arm, his little finger moving in the tiniest of caresses. It was torture; he wanted to reach over and haul Dean onto the bed, trap him in the blankets and keep him there, wrapped up close. There wasn't anything more to it than that (he'd had his fair share of other thoughts involving Dean and beds, but those were Lucifer's toys and he was keeping away from them now); Sam wanted to hug his brother, feel the connection between them with his hands for once.

One move in that direction, the barest hint that he was awake, and Dean would be gone like a shot. Definitely out of reach, probably out of the room, and any sign that this had ever happened would be gone forever. Sam kept his eyes and mouth closed and didn't move, every muscle aching with restraint.

Dean finally shifted away, cat-footing across the carpet to his own bed. Sam waited until he heard Dean punching his pillow into submission, then gradually allowed himself to relax. A short time later he heard Dean's going-under sigh, and the quiet sound of his breathing, deeper in sleep. Sam let out a deep breath of his own and carefully turned over. His brother was buried in the covers, face-down with one hand shoved under his pillow, gripping his knife.

There was space beside him for Sam to fit, pressed to Dean's back with an arm across his waist, his other sliding under Dean's neck and holding him close across the chest. He could almost feel it; too-warm skin and the softness of cotton, Dean's hair tickling his face, legs tangled together in the sheets. It'd be a tight squeeze, but Sam thought he'd probably have his most restful sleep in years.

If it ever happened. If he ever dared.

Sam scooted down the mattress for a better view, folding his knees, and watched Dean sleep until the dawn.

END


End file.
